Black and British: A Forgotten History

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Black and British: A Forgotten History
Genre Documentary
Created by David Olusoga
Directed by Naomi Austin
Presented byDavid Olusoga
Composer Segun Akinola
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes4
Original release
Release9 November 2016 (2016-11-09)

Black and British: A Forgotten History is a four-part BBC Television documentary series, written and presented by David Olusoga and first broadcast in November 2016, [1] [2] and a book of the same title written by Olusoga to accompany the series. [3] [4] [5]

Contents

It documents the history of Black people in Britain and its colonies, starting with those who arrived as part of the Roman occupation, and relates that history to modern Black British identity. [1]

As part of each programme, commemorative plaques – twenty in all – honouring the people discussed, were erected. [6]

The series' music was composed by Segun Akinola, who in 2019 received a nomination at the Screen Nation Awards in the "Rising Star" category for his work on this and two other programmes. [7]

The book was awarded the 2017 Hessell-Tiltman Prize. [8] A new edition was published in 2021, with an additional chapter on the 2018 Windrush scandal and the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. [9]

Episodes and plaques

Each episode had several main topics, and saw the erection of commemorative plaques, as listed in parentheses below, five of which were overseas.

1: First Encounters

2: Freedom

3: Moral Mission

4: The Homecoming

Reception

TV programme

In reviewing the series for The Guardian , Chitra Ramaswamy wrote: [1]

Olusoga excavates our shared heritage with humanity and verve. One of his main messages is that remembrance is a political act. And in a present as tumultuous as ours, facing a future as uncertain as it gets, we need to look to the past more than ever. History never seemed so prescient.

In a four-starred review for The Daily Telegraph , Jasper Rees said "This is a likeable series. So why has it taken so long to be made?" [2]

Book

Colin Grant wrote in The Guardian: "Olusoga's insightful 'forgotten history' amounts to much more than a text to accompany a TV series. Yet despite its many attributes, is it too temperate?" [3]

Sadiah Qureshi in the London Review of Books called the book "remarkable". [20]

In the New Statesman , David Dabydeen said that the book "addresses one of the greatest silences in British historiography". [4]

Aamna Mohdin interviewed Olusoga for The Guardian after the second edition of the book was published. Olusoga said that hostility to his work had been growing "to the point where some of the statements being made are so easily refutable, so verifiably and unquestionably false, that you have to presume that the people writing them know that. And that must lead you to another assumption, which is that they know that this is not true, but they have decided that these national myths are so important to them and their political projects, or their sense of who they are, that they don't really care about the historical truths behind them.... They have been able to convince people that their own history, being explored by their own historians and being investigated by their own children and grandchildren, is a threat to them." [9]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Ramaswamy, Chitra (10 November 2016). "Black and British: A Forgotten History review – this is what it means to share a heritage". The Guardian . Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 Rees, Jasper (9 November 2016). "Black and British: A Forgotten History revealed a fascinating side of our past – review". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 2 May 2021. This is a likeable series. So why has it taken so long to be made?
  3. 1 2 Grant, Colin (17 November 2016). "Black and British by David Olusoga review (2016 edition) – reclaiming a lost past". The Guardian.
  4. 1 2 Dabydeen, David (20 August 2017). "David Olusoga's look at a forgotten history shows there's always been black in the Union Jack". New Statesman . Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  5. ↑ Olusoga, David (2016). Black and British: a forgotten history. London: Macmillan. ISBN   978-1-4472-9973-8.
  6. ↑ Olusoga, David (24 October 2016). "Black and British – a forgotten history". National Heritage Memorial Fund . Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  7. ↑ "Screen Nation Hall Of Fame". Screen Nation. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  8. ↑ Sharp, Robert (10 July 2017). "David Olusoga wins PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2017 for Black and British". English PEN. Archived from the original on 30 March 2020.
  9. 1 2 Mohdin, Aamna (7 June 2021). "David Olusoga on race and reality: 'My job is to be a historian. It's not to make people feel good'". The Guardian.
  10. ↑ Simpson, Craig (25 October 2023). "BBC plaque to mark earliest black Briton removed because she 'was from Cyprus'". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  11. ↑ Seaman, Jo (19 April 2018). "The mystery of Beachy Head Lady". Museum Crush. Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  12. ↑ "Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 1 – Black Cultural Archives". Google Arts & Culture . Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  13. ↑ "Black And British: A Forgotten History". Media Centre. BBC. 9 November 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  14. ↑ "Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 2 – Black Cultural Archives". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  15. ↑ "Black And British: A Forgotten History". Media Centre. BBC. 16 November 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  16. ↑ "Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 3 – Black Cultural Archives". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  17. ↑ "Black And British: A Forgotten History". Media Centre. BBC. 23 November 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  18. ↑ "Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 4 – Black Cultural Archives". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  19. ↑ "Black And British: A Forgotten History". Media Centre. BBC. 30 November 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  20. ↑ Qureshi, Sadiah (14 June 2017). "'We prefer their company'". London Review of Books. 39 (12).
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